Sam Neill opens pop-up cellar door at Two Paddocks

Actor Sam Neill has opened a pop-up cellar door in a silver Airstream caravan at his New Zealand winery Two Paddocks in Central Otago.

Sam Neill and his pet pig Angelica

As reported by the Otago Daily Times, the wine shop will be housed in a silver US-made Airstream caravan in a paddock beside his Bannockburn vineyard.

Named The Fusilier in honour of his father Dermot Neill who served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the vineyard has been decked out with straw bales, wine barrels and picnic tables.

The idea is to make wine more approachable and informal for consumers. “Wine isn’t just for the opera. It should be put in your backpack for a day out, when you are trout fishing. That’s what I do regularly,” the Peaky Blinders star told the Otago Daily Times.

Neill recently played General John MacArthur in murder mystery And Then There Were None, a BBC adaption of an Agatha Christie novel, which aired over Christmas.

He told that paper that the life of an actor was often far from glamorous, involving “endless nights in hotels, eating bad catering and drinking bad wine”.

Neill planted his first vineyard in Gibbston in 1993 and has since added sites in Alexandra and Clyde to the Two Paddocks stable, which includes a pair of single vineyard Pinot Noirs.

His ultimate goal is to make wines that bear the stamp of their Central Otago postcode. The pop-up cellar door will run until 17 January.